An article by a foreign publication, alleging that Facebook overlooks hate speech by BJP leaders, became the latest flashpoint between the Congress and the BJP today. While the Congress posted the article as evidence of the alleged social media manipulation by the BJP, the ruling party cited the Cambridge Analytica data scandal and said the Congress should not point fingers.
In the article titled “Facebook Hate-Speech Rules Collide With Indian Politics — Company executive opposed move to ban controversial politician”, the Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook looks the other way in cases of hate speech and objectionable content from leaders and workers of the ruling BJP.
BJP’s Ravi Shankar Prasad took on Gandhi’s tweet and retaliated by saying: “Losers who cannot influence people even in their own party keep cribbing that the entire world is controlled by BJP & RSS.”
“Facebook did not communicate with us when they took down our official page in 2018. Now, many different supporters across the country have been making pages in my name. We cannot stop anyone. We do not have control,” Singh said. There are at least eight pages and profiles in Singh’s name.
The policy referred to by some Facebook India employees to flag Singh’s alleged posts is the “Dangerous Individuals and Organisations” policy. Under this, content that praises or supports activity such as “organized hate”, “mass murder”, “hate crimes”, or “terrorist attacks” is banned.
Incidentally, Facebook had labelled the communal riots in Northeast Delhi this February as a “hate crime” under this policy, sources told The Indian Express in the beginning of March. The process involved local flagging and a decision made with the global team, they said.
In March last year, Facebook was summoned to the IT Parliamentary Standing Committee led by Anurag Thakur who had accused the platforms (primarily Twitter) of anti-conservative bias.
